[60] Prof. Cowell's translation. V. appends a note, «Apparently the Essence of Life, the Ding an Sich of Kant, and the Wille of Schopenhauer, the Platonic Idea, the abiding type of the perishable individuality; possibly, however, the Vedantic ‹self› is meant.» For the word mah = moon at the commencement of the quatrain, some of the texts read badeh = wine.
[61] Literally, «discernment.»
[62] The obscurity of the meaning here baffles satisfactory translation. Prof. Cowell says: I would rather take it as a sarcasm, «Those fools with their unripe grapes become (in their own eyes) pure wine.»
[63] Azal in Persian dogma is eternity without beginning, i.e., «from all time,» as opposed to abad, eternity without end, i.e., «to all eternity.»
[64] In the East a man may divorce his wife twice and take her back again, but the third time it is irrevocable—unless (curiously enough) she has been married to someone else in the meantime.
[65] i.e., Wine, a recurrent Persian metaphor. Comp.: Arabic «bint-ul-kerm.»
[66] Zahir = exoteric, as opposed to batin = esoteric, in line 2.
[67] C. reads «I am weary.»
[68] The opening lines of FitzGerald's quatrain refer to Omar's reformation of the calendar, and institution of the Jalali era, which Gibbon describes as «a computation of time which surpassed the Julian, and approached the accuracy of the Gregorian style.» («Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,» Gibbing's edition, 1890, vol. iv., p. 180.)
[69] C. reads «So long as I live, I will not grieve for two days.»